Video 13:18
Heavy metal poisoning still rising

Updated
Fri 12 Feb 2010, 4:30 PM AEDT

There has been an increase in the number of people diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning in Rosebery, on Tasmania's west coast.

Transcript

AIRLIE WARD, PRESENTER: The usually quiet West Coast town of Rosebery is becoming divided over growing allegations of heavy metal poisoning. As the number of people being diagnosed with poisoning grows, so too do the numbers joining a possible class action. While the Health Department has reopened what it's called a cluster investigation, it's standing firm in its previous assessment that found there was no health risk. Stateline's Lucy Shannon visited Rosebery and met three members of the same family who have been diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning.

LUCY SHANNON, REPORTER: The Arnold family are desperate to leave their Rosebery home. They say their house on Clemons Street, close to the MMG mine site, is making them sick. They have a mortgage but won't sell for fear of making others ill.

WONITA ARNOLD: You can feel the dust when you're out the back. You can smell it in the air. My animals are dying. I don't want anyone else to ever own it or live in it once I move out. I wouldn't do what I'm going through to anybody.

LUCY SHANNON: Jamie and Wonita Arnold have been diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning by Launceston occupational physician Andreas Ernst. Before the diagnosis, they say they'd been struggling to understand a range of strange symptoms. One day they were working in the garden and Ms Arnold came out in a rash.

WONITA ARNOLD: By the fourth day, my whole entire body was just covered and I went to the hospital, I couldn't breathe properly.... So they sent me to a specialist in Launceston. And she looked at me and as soon as she looked at me she said, "Oh, you've come into contact with something that you're not used to," and the only thing I could think of was the yard.

LUCY SHANNON: Other symptoms they say they've had in recent years include hair loss, diarrhoea, aching joints and memory loss.

JAMIE ARNOLD: We bought this house in '99 and I had no real hassles then either until we moved back in 2005 and that's when we started gettin' all the trouble with irritations of skins. And I've had chronic headaches and vomiting, lumps. I've got lumps all under my skin everywhere.

WONITA ARNOLD: I lose my hair. I've got sores in my hair as well. I've got no nails. I actually wear false nails. I have trouble with my spine. I've been told I got a spine of a 70-year-old. ... My hands, I can't open jars with my hands.

LUCY SHANNON: At the urging of another Rosebery resident who's been diagnosed by Dr Ernst, the Arnolds got tested. They came back with elevated levels of arsenic and copper.

The Director of Public Health, Roscoe Taylor, has told Stateline the results were not necessarily a concern, but Dr Ernst put them together with the Arnolds' symptoms and made a clinical diagnosis of heavy metal poisoning.

JAMIE ARNOLD: I was shocked, just absolutely shocked, because I thought, oh, yeah, you know, these people were just carrying on for nothing and then I found out I got it myself. Well it's a different story when you've got it yourself, of course.

LUCY SHANNON: Wonita's daughter Makayla lives in the house and has been diagnosed too. She has a six-month-old baby boy, Jaxon, who has returned a positive test for the heavy metal thallium. Thallium is rare and there's little toxicological expertise on the metal in Australia.

Professor Peter Stewart from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney which analysed the baby's urine test told Stateline that despite being well over the reference range, the baby's result was not at a toxic level. But another practitioner has concerns.

MAKAYLA ARNOLD: His specialist says how he concerned he is about it but he hasn't said what those kind of things can do to his body or how they can harm in the long run.

LUCY SHANNON: The differing advice and confusion about results goes to the heart of what is becoming a Rosebery saga. For a town of just over a thousand people, it should be a close-knit community, but at the moment it's far from that. There appears to be two camps: those who've been diagnosed and their supporters and those who believe the reputation of Rosebery is being damaged by people who have no factual evidence of heavy metal poisoning.

Rosebery's mine manager, John Lamb, is sympathetic to the second group's views

JOHN LAMB, MINE MANAGER: We do have on the one hand a small group of residents who are making some quite specific claims about their health. And then we have a much wider community that is quite frustrated and might I say angry to have the good name of our town dragged through the mud without much in the way of a factual basis.

LUCY SHANNON: Some of the anger in the town has turned threatening. One resident has set up a Facebook page called 'Rosebery is not contaminated - I'm prepared to be tested'. Some postings, which have since been removed, refer to burning houses down.

Makayla Arnold says being a part of the Toxic Heavy Metals Taskforce, which advocates for diagnosed residents, is risky.

MAKAYLA ARNOLD: I've kept pretty quiet about being a part of the group because I know that as soon as I tell people, they're just gonna completely change. And a few weeks ago I was abused in front of my ex-partner and all the rest, and, yeah, it just hurts.

LUCY SHANNON: Isla McGregor, who has previously helped whistleblowers, is the group's spokeswoman.

ISLA MCGREGOR, toxic heavy metals taskforce: I have never seen such an appalling case of inhumane treatment of a group of people in this state. If this for instance was in Hobart, you would have - and people had presented themselves to the Department of Health with these types of symptoms, there would have been a population-based survey in the area, like happened originally back in the '90s in Lutana.

LUCY SHANNON: The Director of Public Health, Dr Roscoe Taylor, says right from the start the Health Department has been trying to help.

There seems to be a deep antagonism or at least mistrust between the department and the residents. Do you regret that?

ROSCoe TAYLOR, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Oh, very much. It's been a fraught process in the beginning, it seems, which is something of a mystery to me about the lack of trust when we really were wanting to help.

LUCY SHANNON: The Health Department and the Environmental Protection Authority launched an investigation late in 2008 when residents in three houses were concerned their health problems were linked to smelly water seeping onto their properties.

Professor Brian Priestly, the Director of the Australian Centre for Human Health Risk Assessment, conducted the investigation. He concluded that none of the results obtained from soil, dust, water or air, taken during the investigation, indicated a significant risk of toxic exposures. He said that conclusion was reinforced by available data from blood, urine and hair samples from residents of the three properties in question. He recommended that no further environmental sampling around the properties was warranted.

The Director of Public Health stands by the findings and says it's unlikely anyone has heavy metal poisoning.

ROSCoe TAYLOR: At this point in time it's implausible and I've got no doubt that there are health issues in a number of people and the question is whether or not they can be linked to heavy metal poisoning, particularly when the pathology testing doesn't appear to suggest that.

LUCY SHANNON: All comments now are given against a backdrop of litigation. Law firm Slater and Gordon are acting for about 20 current and former Rosebery residents. The lawyers are working up a possible class action against the Health Department and potentially the Mining and Minerals Group and the West Coast Council for a failure in duty of care.

Former resident Marsha Stejskal has been diagnosed with damage to the peripheral nerves.

MARSHA STEJSKAL, FORMER RESIDENT: My fingers are curling in and sometimes I lose grip because it's very weak. ... And when I wake up in the morning I can't really walk properly because I have horrible feelings on the soles of my feet.

LUCY SHANNON: Mr Long says the first investigation was seriously deficient.

PETER LONG, SLATER AND GORDON: It was extremely narrow and the fact that there were no dangerous levels of one chemical or one heavy metal doesn't mean a lot, because these heavy metals work in synergy together and are much more toxic in combination than they are as individuals.

ROSCoe TAYLOR: The processes we've taken have been in line with national approaches for the assessment of heavy metals in soil and we've followed the national guidelines in that regard.

LUCY SHANNON: The toxic effect of a combination of heavy metals is something that deeply concerns Dr Andreas Ernst. He has diagnosed about 10 people with heavy metal poisoning. In the past he has worked as an occupational physician for mining giants Rio Tinto and Comalco. He, along with Slater and Gordon representatives, gave this presentation to the deputy director of Health, Chrissy Pickin, late last year, and as a result the Health Department reopened its investigation.

ROSCoe TAYLOR: What we're doing at the moment is collecting all of the clinical information we can obtain that's of relevance to heavy metal poisoning regarding about 10 people that Dr Andreas Ernst has advised us of, and we are then sending that information, de-identified, to interstate clinical toxicologists.

LUCY SHANNON: The question of clinical experience is important in the Rosebery case. The Toxic Heavy Metals Taskforce and the residents' lawyers have questioned the department's choice of Professor Brian Priestly to assess the risk of heavy metal poisoning. The eminent scientist has a background mainly in pharmacology.

ISLA MCGREGOR: The department failed to find a clinical toxicologist with medical experience and qualifications, and without that, based on the report by Professor Priestly, which was really just looking at the environment and measurements, there was no medical assessment.

LUCY SHANNON: Professor Priestly has considerable experience in health risk assessment, but it was not in his brief to medically assess the residents. In an email to Stateline he said: "... I was careful not to draw any conclusions about the health status of the residents since I do not have the medical qualifications to make such clinical judgements." However, he said he did comment on, "... The extent to which the metal measurements in blood, urine and hair of some of the residents could inform the risk assessment process and whether they were consistent with a level of exposure likely to constitute a health risk."

Professor Priestly did recommend that health complaints be followed up by the Health Department. Dr Taylor says clinical assessments were carried out, but due to consent problems, the results were never received.

ROSCoe TAYLOR: It's only when we got Dr Ernst's clinical impression that, OK, that was something we needed then to take with due respect and look again at the clinical side and that's what we're trying to do.

LUCY SHANNON: Was that a hole in the evidence then at that time that that clinical information wasn't part of the final assessment?

ROSCoe TAYLOR: I don't necessarily think it was a hole in the evidence. It wasn't as complete as we would have liked.

LUCY SHANNON: The MMG mine recently announced it would conduct new testing. Consultants GHD are about halfway through. Soil testing at about 100 public places and houses is occurring, as well as blood and urine tests of workers and their families. Members of the Toxic Heavy Metals Taskforce have declined to be involved.

A community reference group has also been set up. Its members include the Australian Workers Union, the Health Department, the mine and the Environmental Protection Authority. Its chairman, West Coast Mayor Daryl Gerrity, says the group will assess new test results and then provide appropriate information to Rosebery residents.

DARYL GERRITY, CHAIRMAN, ROSEBERY COMMUNITY REFERENCE GROUP: Who are concerned that their lifestyle, their image, their future is being tarnished by accusations without substance from afar and they want it all put to rest one way or the other.

LUCY SHANNON: But the Toxic Taskforce and lawyers aren't satisfied. They want a population-based health and environmental survey, including animal and garden produce testing. Many Rosebery residents grow and consume their own vegetables. They want the Environmental Protection Authority to enforce the mine to monitor for arsenic and thallium and they want their members to be provided with a health advocate.

PETER LONG: It shouldn't be a matter for sick people to have to go and prove why they've become sick. There's no doubt they're sick. There's no doubt what they're sick with. And it's not up to them to then go and prove what are the plausible pathways by which they became affected.